Thursday, November 19, 2015

After
the company he works for files for bankruptcy, Jack Dwyer (Owen
Wilson) accepts a position overseas with Cardiff, a transnational,
water bottling corporation. But the native Texan really regrets that
his new job will involve uprooting his wife, Annie (Lake Bell), and
their young daughters, Beeze (Claire Geare) and Lucy (Sterling
Jerins). During the long flight to Southeast Asia, we find the girls
fretting about whether they'll like their new home and if their dad's
new company will go belly up, too.

Luckily,
little Beeze also strikes up a conversation with a fellow passenger
(Pierce Brosnan) about his assortment of curious face and body scars.
For, the mysterious stranger, Mr. Hammond, happens to be quite
familiar with the family's destination point.

Upon
landing at the airport, he helps them avoid the shady, solicitous
street hustlers lurking around the terminal. Instead, he directs them
to an honest cabbie (Sahajak Boonthanakit) who'll escort them to what
they reasonably expect to be comfy accommodations.

But
au contraire! Culture shock sets in when the Dwyers' check into the
Imperial Lotus hotel where nothing in the suite seems to work: their
cell phone, the land line, the TV, not even the lights. Still, those
inconveniences pale in comparison to the threat to their very
existence posed by the coup d'etat which suddenly claims the life of
the country's prime minister (Vuthichard Photphurin).

In
the wake of the assassination, bloodthirsty gangs of rebels start
roaming around the country, specifically looking for Westerners to
lynch on the spot. And it isn't long before the horde of marauders
are going door-to-door right inside the hotel.

What
to do? What to do? As a stranger in a strange land with no links to
the outside world, Jack realizes that he has to rely on his wits to
save his family.

He
settles on sanctuary at the American embassy as the goal, which might
be easier said than done sans GPS on streets crawling with
Yankee-hating insurgents. Nonetheless, with the walls closing in, he
leads Annie and the girls to the roof of the building to begin the
perilous journey.

Directed
by John Erik Dowdle (As Above, So Below), No Escape is a
tightly-wound, high-octane, action thriller that keeps you on the
edge of your seat for the duration, courtesy of of the Dwyers' close
brushes with death at every turn. Credit a quintet of convincing
performances here, including Owen Wilson, Lake Bell, Claire Geare and
Sterling Jerins as the terrified family, along with Pierce Brosnan as
an “economic hit man” filled with overwhelming regret.

A
harrowing heart-pounder that delivers even more excitement per-minute
than is suggested by its very compelling trailer!

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The Sly Fox Film Reviews

KamWilliams.com

The Sly Fox Film Reviews publishes the content of film critic Kam Williams. Voted Most Outstanding Journalist of the Decade by the Disilgold Soul Literary Review in 2008, Kam Williams is a syndicated film and book critic who writes for 100+ publications around the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa, Canada and the Caribbean. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Online, the NAACP Image Awards Nominating Committee and Rotten Tomatoes.

In addition to a BA in Black Studies from Cornell, he has an MA in English from Brown, an MBA from The Wharton School, and a JD from Boston University. Kam lives in Princeton, NJ with his wife and son.